Remorse
by DealingDearie
Summary: Erik looks back on the (once, maybe, former) love of his life, and finally allows himself to feel that regret so widely known among humans. Feedback is always appreciated.


In a way, she was like the moon, always shining as bright and as long as it could manage, but helpless to prevent its own demise, fading into the awakening sky with something resembling defeat.

It was wonderful, to stand beneath her light and bathe in its cool embrace, and it was fast and powerful, like a rushing blur of images that found a way to mingle together while throwing a few distinct pictures out in the open, as if those seemingly insignificant pieces of time had failed to merge with the rest of the memories buried deep within his mind.

Because, really, what is a memory but a passageway to another one, a string of moments residing inside his head as he stares out into the dead of night, the gentle caress of the moon fooling the world with its innocent gleam?

Yes, he was fooled, tricked into believing her a tiger when she was a mere alley cat, unable to look past her beauty and fierceness at the fragility lurking beneath.

But Erik-because he can no longer call himself Magneto, really-knows that to be a lie, because she was-in every way he could have dreamed possible-like the sun.

She'd warmed him, kissing his lips with that feather soft touch of innocence still lingering within her glowing eyes, her hesitant hands clutching his own as if she couldn't live one more minute without him at her side. She'd made him smile, cracking ill-timed jokes at Emma's expense just because she could, and because Magneto had found it harder and harder to hide his grin beneath her all seeing gaze. She'd protected him, shielding his body from the one thing that could take him apart, and he'd watched her convulse upon the floor, blue skin fading into the milky color she'd once worn so ashamedly, her human eyes wide and round and shining with unshed tears, hands shaking as she'd reached out.

The sun was kind, and merciful, and there when you needed it to be. It kept you alive and full of life.

But the sun, for all of its wonders, was a cruel thing.

She'd burned him, exacting her scornful revenge from across a metal table, a folder of papers and files clutched in her pale grasp. She'd hurt him, slapping him across the face a time or two when he snapped at her, and he always watched the fire in her eyes die just as quickly as it had appeared. She'd made him fear, that youthful innocence in her face fading as time wore on, the kindness he'd known disappearing when she killed a man for the first time, her eyes void of anything but the icy hatred he'd instilled in her, his ever steady right hand.

And yet-she'd loved him.

Mystique-but not Raven, because he can't bring himself to utter that name without an undercurrent of memories that he can't face-had been just like the sun, hung high up on its sky-like pedestal, proudly displayed to the world in all of its infinite beauty, shining and shining and shining until it was dying, dimly aware of the night at its back as it lit up brighter than ever before, illuminated with blinding light just before it faded into darkness.

Erik watches the sun finally take over the sky-because he's so often been out here for hours on end, replaying his life and all of the things he regrets-and notices the tears in his eyes, the tell-tale blur of his vision burning his eyes as he blinks them away.

The memory of her lips ignites upon his own, the ghost of her hand carding through his hair a long lost comfort, and he closes his eyes, the wrinkles on his eyelids crinkling with the movement, and his grey hair waves in the gentle, early morning breeze, the echo of young laughter sighing along its soft current. The imprint of her yellow eyes shines in the darkness he sees, and her voice-the careful, trembling timbre that had resounded somewhere deep within him, her girlish lips turned up at the corners as she'd smiled at the ground, speaking of tigers and hiding and perfection-rings through his head like a prayer, and he finds himself murmuring her name in the voice he'd only ever used for her-the one that reassured her that he still kept his humanity in his darkened soul-and finds that he can no longer remember what it was like to have humanity.

But his remorse is sharp, and it cuts him all over again as he thinks of all the things he regrets.

Most of all, though, he regrets Mystique, regrets kissing her small lips in the confines of his bedroom, regrets having her frail heart within his palms for so many long years, regrets turning that kindness into such awful bitterness, regrets leaving her and a lifetime of memories behind.

He does not, however, regret the love shining in her eyes as she turned over on the pillows, her fiery hair spread about her like a burning halo, her sleepy eyes blinking over at him as he ran a finger down her cheek, brushing the raised patterns there with his fingertip as she smiled at him, all of the love within her poured into that one gesture, his heart fluttering within his chest, her milky eyes opening to reveal the fierce sunlight therein.

And the tears pour down Erik's face with abandon.

**Please R&R! Feedback of any kind is always appreciated! ;)**

**Some Mystique/Magneto requested by STARSCREAM RULEZ.**

**Prompts, pairings, and ideas are welcome! **

**All rights go to their respectful owners.**


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